tagged w/ ecological balance
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So Hollywood trashed the world in 2012, and scourged it in The Road. But neither apocalypse delivered the sweet tang of satisfaction. That's because what the Earth needs now are life-distorting biotech mutation stories. Here's why:
First of all, there haven't been very many biotech apocalypse flicks at all, even though genetic engineering and other genome/proteome-based weirdness are freaking everybody out in the pop science media. Possibly 28 Days Later is the iconic example of a biotech apocalypse, since it's a human-made virus that unleashes the zombie hoardes. But honestly, we can do better than plagues - we've all seen those before. Besides, the upcoming World War Z movie is probably going to hold the whole plague subgenre hostage to its awesomeness next year.
So what would have to happen to produce a really great biotech apocalypse that wasn't just a virus scare with zombies that made us all think disappointedly of I Am Legend?
First of all, the biotech armageddon would have to affect the entire biosphere, not just humans. When it comes to imagining this scenario I always think of Kathleen Ann Goonan's Jazz Quintet novels, which begin with Queen City Jazz. She creates a future where many people move into biotech cities whose entire infrastructure is mutable and organic - genetically-engineered bees keep the cities "growing" by fertilizing the buildings, which are actually giant wildflowers. The problem comes when the city itself is infested with a virus that causes its entire fabric to remake itself to resemble stories from files stored in the city's library. What if your city decided that it wanted to be a film noir Paris, and then reprogrammed every person and building to emulate that (fictional) place?
If you wanted to go even weirder, visit the scenarios that Rudy Rucker comes up with in Hylozoic, where every object on the planet becomes sentient. Suddenly you are having an emotional relationship with your telephone, which has a lot of opinions about how you've abused it in the past.
I'm not saying we need movie versions of these books, though that might be nice if done by the right people. What we need is for mainstream media to catch up to what is happening in literature and in the lab.
Though I wasn't entirely crazy about Minority Report, one thing that film got right was its emphasis on believable technology. The filmmakers went to MIT, checked out labs where futuristic computer interfaces and biotech are being invented, and incorporated them into the film. I'd love to see the movie that got made after some filmmakers spent some time hanging out at the Department of Energy's Genome Research Institute, or the Max Planck Institute in Europe - or, hell, how about just reading even one essay by Drew Endy?
Continued below . . . . .
http://io9.com/5418516/give-me-a-biotech-apocalypse-that-i-can-believe-inSo Hollywood trashed the world in 2012, and scourged it in The Road. But neither... more
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The Sierra Nevada has been characterized as the “canary in the coal mine,” or early alarm for deleterious effects of rising temperatures resulting from climate change, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
But all parts of the Sierra won’t be treated equally. Despite Truckee-Tahoe’s more northern latitude, the area likely will be hit harder than the taller mountains to the south.
“The area around Tahoe and Donner Summit, for example, would be more affected than Kings Canyon,” said Josh Viers, an assistant research ecologist at the University of California, Davis.
And so Tahoe National Forest has been picked as an open-air laboratory for climate change — a focal point in a global issue — with researchers from academic bodies, conservation groups and the Forest Service gleaning whatever they can learn from the surrounding woods.
“When I started, I was a naysayer, ready to poke holes in global warming,” said Carol Kennedy, the watershed project manager for the Tahoe National Forest. “I don’t poke holes anymore.”
Retreating trees
Perhaps easiest to predict and already in progress in some cases is the steady retreat of vegetation away from rising low-elevation temperatures and toward ever-shrinking snow melt, Viers said.
However, not all species and ecosystems will move at the same rate, he said.
“What has been documented at higher elevation is the leading edge is moving up much slower than the trailing edge, and species are feeling the squeeze,” Viers said. “In practice, the ponderosa pine is pretty hard hit.”The Sierra Nevada has been characterized as the “canary in the coal mine,”... more
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A project to map every place in the world's second-largest tropical forest where trees have been cut down will be announced today.
A purpose-built camera will be sent into space to record every clearing and logger's track in the Congo Basin in Africa to determine how much of the forest is left.
The camera will be fixed to a satellite and should be operational by the end of 2010 as part of an initiative to save the Central African tropical forest from being chopped down.
At twice the size of France, the Congo Basin forest is exceeded in extent only by the Amazon but it is estimated that loggers, many of them illegal, destroy an area the size of 25,000 football pitches every week.
Forests absorb huge quantities of carbon but it is released when they are cut down and their preservation is regarded as one of the biggest challenges by those trying to slow the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change.
Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, will announce extra funding to save the forest today when he explains the camera project. It will record the forest in more detail than before.
A project to map every place in the world's second-largest tropical forest where... more
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Beautiful coral reefs are increasingly under threat from climate change, and so are 4,000 species of fish, critically dependent on them for food, shelter or reproduction, warns a study.
It blames global warming for the latest threat to marine biodiversity. Already many corals have died because of warmer waters associated with climate change.
''The problem for specialist coral fishes is that when the corals die, the fish have nowhere else to go. Other kinds of fish live more independently, but depend on reefs for shelter in the juvenile stage of their life,'' said the study's co-author Philip Munday.
''As coral communities become less healthy, so too do the fish communities. A loss of diversity in corals due to bleaching and other impacts is also likely to lead to a loss in diversity among the fishes which inhabit them,'' the researchers said.
Like corals themselves, coral fishes seem to prefer a temperature-stable environment and heating of the water may affect them in unpredictable ways.
For instance, Munday said, warmer water may lead to higher survival rates in baby fish - but it could equally send a signal to adults to stop breeding, as reproduction is often governed by water conditions.
Recent research has shown that some species might grow more slowly if temperatures go above their preferred range.
An estimated 200 million people worldwide derive their livelihoods and a major source of sustenance from coral reefs. In Australia, a $5 billion tourism industry depends significantly on visitors being able to view corals and their colourful fish.
Beautiful coral reefs are increasingly under threat from climate change, and so are... more
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Dawn strikes the mountains rising above St. Mary’s Lake in Montana’s Glacier National Park. When the park was created in 1910, it had 150 glaciers. Now it has 30 glaciers, significantly reduced in size.
Many of the world’s freshwater glaciers are shrinking, as warming temperatures melt them away. Some have disappeared all together. The glaciers on both Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro are among those glaciers noticeably decreasing as temperatures climb, causing lower-lying towns considerable worry.
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And when they all melt away then will humanity (if it still exists) say this is a crisis that needs to be 'solved now' when it is too late? Will we still be 'debating' it?Dawn strikes the mountains rising above St. Mary’s Lake in Montana’s... more
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